Fall(Romanian Mob Chronicles Book 2)(17)

“So let’s try. I’ll give you a call sometime?” Michael said.

It was tempting, an offer I wouldn’t have thought twice about a month ago. The words hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t say them.

Sorin, the memory of how I felt when I was with him, wouldn’t let me.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” I said, shaking my head.

“Fair enough,” he replied. “But I might try to change your mind.”

I nodded, but I barely paid him any attention, too preoccupied with trying to figure out why I’d turned down an opportunity I would have once jumped at. Or rather, accepting the fact that Sorin was the reason. That thought churned in my brain as I said good-bye to Michael.

I doubted I’d be able to solve this problem here, so I focused on the couple as I retied my apron, an attempt to buy me time to uncover the wells of patience my grandmother had always said lived deep, deep inside me.

“Miss!” the man called.

“Sure, fine,” I said, waving at Michael and then plastering the biggest, fakest smile on my face, determined to keep this job for at least a month no matter what.

“You want more a mint color?” I said as I walked toward the couple.



* * *



Esther



“You okay, E?” Fawn asked.

I started, not realizing until then that I had drifted off. Then I looked at her, seeing a wariness on her face.

“I’m good. Just tired.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I’ve just been working. Hard for once,” I said, waving my hand, hoping she bought the excuse and didn’t ask questions about Sorin that I had no desire to answer.

“And that’s all?” she asked.

I sat up, leaned toward her. “Did he tell you?” I asked, voice sounding frantic even to my own ears.

“No, but you just did.”

And then she had the nerve to smile like I had just given her a giant ice cream cone.

“You’re tricky…”

I trailed off and then laughed. In truth, I had been dying, dying, to talk to Fawn about him, and she just saved me the effort of having to broach the topic.

“How could you tell, by the way? I need to know if you’re just smart or if I’m obvious.”

“Surprisingly, it was just a wild guess. You didn’t tip anything off, but something was troubling you, so I went for the first option.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Why is that good?” she asked, seeming genuinely curious and not at all judgmental.

“Because I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. I mean this is nothing. Nothing. Just crazy chemistry. That’s it. It’s nothing.” I punched my fist at the air emphatically, hoping to convey how serious I was. Because I was not taking this thing with Sorin seriously, especially not now. It wasn’t even a thing actually. Was it?

“So it’s nothing. So why the consternation?” Fawn asked.

“There…there was an…incident,” I said, the warmth that always suffused me when I thought of Sorin displaced by the memory of his face twisted with rage, and the cries that boy had made when he’d kicked him.

She sat up, but I nodded and she calmed.

“Nothing serious. Well at least not for me. But we were…” I trailed off again, not exactly sure how to explain that Sorin had been in my home that late in the evening. But then I shrugged. It was Fawn; I shared everything with her for decades.

“We’d…hung out, and after we went to grab some food. On the way back, these dudes tried to rob us.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “What did he do?”

“Kicked the crap out of them. I think he broke one of the guy’s arms.”

I met Fawn’s eyes again and then gave voice to the far-off thought that had been weighing in my mind, the one that came up whenever I thought of what could have happened that night. The moment stretched, and I finally decided to share my fears with Fawn. “The thing is, I believe, suspect anyway, that it would have been much, much worse if I hadn’t been there.”

I’d glanced away but looked at Fawn again. I was certain she’d gotten the implication, but my words hung in the air. As did my guilt. I wasn’t sorry about what had happened to them, not really, and though reason told me I should have been repelled by Sorin, by what I knew he could have done, I wasn’t. That was what was eating me up inside.

“It may have, Esther,” she finally said. “I’m not going to lie to you.”

Her response simultaneously surprised me but didn’t. Fawn was one of the most kindhearted people I’d ever met, but she was also a realist, one who didn’t lie, even to herself. I waited for her to continue, but when she went quiet, I prodded her. “What?”